City police cars will have new 'eyes' on you

Published: Friday, January 18, 2013 at 04:59 PM.

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“So we’re making progress,” said City Manager Ed Munn. “This is a big step forward.”

Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell is an avid supporter of the technology.

“Any time you can give the judge and jury more information, it’s a good thing,” he said.

New bells and whistles

Years ago, a handful of Gastonia’s police cars had cumbersome, VHS tape-based camera systems. Ten of those have since been replaced with DVD units that are still in use.

The wireless units the city is purchasing allow the footage recorded each day to be automatically downloaded when an officer pulls into the police department or a designated “hot spot.” It simplifies the process of getting the recorded video to supervisors, said Hawkins, who oversees the traffic division and the camera evidence.

“It’s more difficult to manually download all those videos, especially as you get cameras in more cars,” he said.

In-car video cameras have long been atypical perks on law enforcement vehicles in North Carolina, rather than standard features.

But the benefits they provide in visual evidence of arrests and traffic stops, and in answering public questions about police activity, are turning them into a priority.

State legislators are making a concerted push to have every N.C. Highway Patrol vehicle outfitted with the cameras soon. And local police departments are searching for more ways to pay for the upgrades, despite the high cost of the hardware.

“We want to get all of our cars outfitted,” said Gastonia Police Sgt. Chad Hawkins. “But it just takes time and money.”

Gastonia City Council members took another step in doing that Tuesday. They approved a police department request to use almost $119,000 in federal asset forfeiture money, as well as a Justice Assistance Grant, to spend $188,000 on new in-car video devices.

That will allow the city to buy 40 of the wireless video units, which cost $4,705 each, from Kustom Signals of Lenexa, Kan.

The city has 123 marked police vehicles, 26 of which are already equipped with a wireless or DVD-based, in-car video system. More than half of the department’s fleet will be equipped with cameras after the new hardware is installed.

“So we’re making progress,” said City Manager Ed Munn. “This is a big step forward.”

Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell is an avid supporter of the technology.

“Any time you can give the judge and jury more information, it’s a good thing,” he said.

New bells and whistles

Years ago, a handful of Gastonia’s police cars had cumbersome, VHS tape-based camera systems. Ten of those have since been replaced with DVD units that are still in use.

The wireless units the city is purchasing allow the footage recorded each day to be automatically downloaded when an officer pulls into the police department or a designated “hot spot.” It simplifies the process of getting the recorded video to supervisors, said Hawkins, who oversees the traffic division and the camera evidence.

“It’s more difficult to manually download all those videos, especially as you get cameras in more cars,” he said.

Footage that isn’t needed is purged from the system after a certain time, while other video is retained for investigations or trials.

The wireless cameras are positioned near the sun visor on the passenger side of the police car. The camera eye can be rotated to face outside of the car, or to record interior activity. A monitor on the rearview mirror allows the officer to see what the camera is recording.

Hawkins said they try to ensure that cars with cameras are spread out as evenly as possible across the city, to ensure multiple shifts and zones share the technology.

The benefits are undeniable, particularly if there is a police incident that involves some use of force, he said. Such footage is valuable for everything from DWI cases to more serious events, he said.

“There are many benefits to it for everyone because it tells the story,” said Hawkins. “You can tell something, you can write about it, but when you can actually see it, it makes it that much better.”

Gradual upgrades

The Gaston County Police Department has 85 to 90 marked vehicles, and two or three of them had in-car, DVD-based video cameras at one point. The hardware was purchased with a grant, but Chief James Buie said it stopped working at some point.

“When they broke down, we never got them fixed,” he said. “It was too cost-prohibitive to do it.”

But Buie said there’s no questioning the value of such technology.

“I think every law enforcement agency can justify the need,” he said.

Not long ago, only about 10 percent of the N.C. Highway Patrol’s vehicles were equipped with in-vehicle cameras, said Sgt. D.L. Litaker of the Gaston County trooper station.

“Now it’s at least 50 percent,” he said. “What we’ve been told is our entire fleet will have in-car cameras … probably within a year. It’s something legislators are pushing.”

State leaders are following the lead of places such as South Carolina, where the entire highway patrol’s fleet is equipped with cameras, Litaker said.

Ninety-five percent of the time, such video capability aids law enforcement, Litaker said. He estimated that the other 5 percent of the time, it exposes wrongdoing by officers in the line of duty.

Such footage can be a double-edged sword, because people watching a video repeatedly after the fact can make unfair judgments on how an officer should or shouldn’t have reacted in a tense, split-second situation, Litaker said.

“And when you’re in the heat of the moment, there are so many things a camera can pick up that a human eye cannot,” he said.

You can reach Michael Barrett at 704-869-1826 or twitter.com/GazetteMike.